Introducing a new mechanic: RUSH CAPPING. You heard it right, RUSH CAPPING. Multiple heroes capping a single flag will accelerate the capping time. RUSH CAPPING.

You can no longer attempt to cap flags you already own or are contesting (the system always ignored it anyway).

Flag-associated sounds are now global.

Flag-associated messages are now color-coded.

Pyromancer can no longer Boost Fire out of the base before the countdown.

Slapped some dicks together in the backend, hopefully fixing that model scale bug with Gyrocopter's Shrink and Enlarge Rays.

Reduced Gyrocopter's speed.

Changed some numbers around for Gyrocopter's Tractor Beam. It lasts 3/5/7 seconds (down from 10), has 128 range (down from 800/1200/1600), has 22s cooldown (down from 30s), 0 manacost (down from 75), and can target allies in addition to enemies.

At some point next week, I'll talk about some ideas I have about reducing the snowball effect and making flags more meaningful in the end game.

alright so I had some time to think about the map and everything and I forgot to post those thoughts but here have at it

Planeteer >

I actually really liked what you did with his skillset. Though I for some reason mistook the cyclones being able to eat projectiles (not sure why I thought that), I thought that might actually be a neat feature to add to that ability. But probably a pain in the ass to do given a lot of projectiles are not physics objects. It was basically impossible to duel the crab given how meteor would hit me between the latency and do a large amount of my health but he felt like one of the few heroes that could bring objective denial on a large scale. I guess that was basically his intended function - terrain-based support. I can't remember what his ult was though (or if we actually reached that point in the game?) But the water spray was hilarious and relatively easy to use despite the input delay, which I think is a rare thing to accomplish.

I feel like the firelord still does too much damage with the orbital fireballs given they were hitting for 400+ and felt unavoidable but maybe that's just how far behind we were.

TGS >

I feel like the damage component or something should be removed from holy light. I don't really know about chain death coil because it's one of those abilities that is impossible to see due to being visually nondescript in a visually busy environment.

Have you considered giving buildings a very slight HP regen (towers included)? Right now, towers seem utterly worthless and often die without any heroes even being in that lane. There's no point in holding or taking towers except for the substantial amount of gold the rare last hit actually contributes.

You can windwalk while casting blizzard and divine shield while starfalling.

Chain Death Coil is getting nerfed. 75/125/.../575, down from 125/200/.../800 (jesus i am retarded). I'm also going to be restricting its bounce behavior. If you cast it on an allied unit, it will only bounce to other allied units. Likewise with enemy units.

Holy Light Blast will be reworked to behave more like Frost Nova and renamed to Holy Light Nova. It will follow the same allied/enemy restrictions as described above. This will also fix the order string confliction with Blizzard that I was made aware of a while back.

You will not be able to target yourself with either Chain Death Coil or Holy Light Nova. You can still heal yourself if there's an allied unit to cast it on.

Feedback will become a regular skill. Scaling = 6/12/.../60 mana per hit. Will also do 9/18/.../90 extra damage to summoned units. (Also, reminder that this is WC3 and orb effects don't stack.)

Siphon Mana will receive significant buffs to its lower levels. 35/42.5/.../95/105 mana drained, up from 15/25/.../105. Casting range scales 600/700/800/900, maxing out at level 4 instead of 600/630/.../840/900 from levels 1 to 10. Leash range scales 800/900/1000/1100, maxing out at level 4 instead of 800/830/.../1040/1100 from levels 1 to 10. Cooldown scales 22.50/18/13.5/9, maxing out at level 4 instead of being 9 seconds across all levels. The increased CDs is to prevent it from being too toxic during the game's laning phase.

Mana Shield will have its activation cost massively increased. It will remain at 25 cost at level 1, but it will increase by 75 per level. You'll be paying 700 mana upfront at level 10. Once it gets burned off, it's off. (No changes to its mana per hit points or 100% absorption yet; I want to see how the new Feedback and Siphon Mana perform against it.)

Regular skills will be stocked up to a maximum of 3. They will still start at 1 and restock slowly. This is mainly to facilitate skill counters and unlearning.

I want to look at the new units more closely, but their upgrades should all work properly now.

It isn't that bad when a short game gets ended by cheese, but ending a long one like that feels like a waste, especially when it wasn't being decisively won by either side. Now we'll never know how that would have panned out. Thanks a lot.

So, what do we do about this, alongside making the castle repairable? (Other than doing what Mesk did with Zilla in LoL and making the game ban Steak)

I don't think it would be a bad idea to just make it more durable as well as repairable. The town halls already die pretty quickly if a lane is pushed up that far. I had mentioned maybe giving it more armor or something if a lane isn't down after the game ended. I feel like it would be better to avoid flat out invulnerability like most AoS types.